Lighting accounts for almost a fourth of the nation's
electrical energy consumption, yet it's one of the simplest
ways to save.

Getting people to use more efficient lighting has been
a crusade for Michael Siminovitch, who leads the project
to develop fixtures and applications within the lighting
group of Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies
Division. His team has brought numerous technologies to
market, lighting spaces as small as offices and as big
as auditoriums.

Siminovitch
has learned that it's not enough just to invent a better
lamp. "You have to make people happy. It's the
most important thing in persuading them to change."

An undergraduate design-engineering student, Siminovitch
got intrigued by lighting during graduate work in architecture
at the University of Illinois. "The more I learned
about light, the more I realized what a difference it
could make in cost and livability."

Berkeley
Lab's energy-efficient torchieres give off "cool"
light.

With a Ph.D. in architecture and human factors from the
University of Michigan, he found a home in the lighting
research program at Berkeley Lab. "I like playing
with the apparatus," Siminovitch admits, and his
lighting lab is chock full of it, with names like the
Spectro-Radiometer, the Gonio-Photometer, and the Integrating
Sphere.

Technical developments from his team include torchieres
and other fixtures that use compact fluorescent lamps
(CFLs), better task lighting for the US Postal Service,
high performance kitchen lights, and improved lighting
for beverage machines. Equally important is the human
response built into the designs: "You have to balance
optical efficiency with the human factor."

For example, a handsome torchiere that uses a CFL instead
of a hot halogen lamp puts out the same amount of light
with a quarter the power -- and it's cool enough to touch,
dramatically reducing fire danger. An even more advanced
table lamp recently debuted.

Such inventions come from a small group of "really
bright engineers," including students; Siminovitch
credits Berkeley Lab's engineering-education outreach
programs for attracting excellent students. "We throw
real problems at them, and they share the credit. Projects
that make a difference give them real satisfaction."

Siminovitch's work is mirrored in his personal life.
For years he has dressed completely in black, at first
because "I didn't want to be a photometric error"
in brightness measurements, and later because "it
makes buying clothes a lot easier." Which saves time
for other projects: he and his wife are remodeling their
new home for maximum energy efficiency, with passive solar
heating, superinsulation -- and CFL torchieres in every
room.